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+Title: I guess I just thought we were smarter than this
+Date: 08/08/2020 11:38
+
+I live in the United States.  I am lucky in that my state has done a really
+good job of managing the current pandemic but for a variety of reasons the
+broader response in my country has been... ineffectual.  In spite of polling
+that shows that most of the country is in favor of social distancing and face
+covering guidelines that provably prevent transmission of this disease
+media outlets and politicians act like there is still a debate to be had, and
+as a result comparatively small groups of people continue to behave in wildly
+irresponsible ways, driving up infections and ultimately deaths.
+
+Most of the lip service is being paid to 'the economy'.  I get that the economy
+is a large, complex, and extremely interconnected thing but at the end of the
+day the economy is a human construct.  We made it up, we continue to re-make it
+every few decades.  The economic system in place in the US today is not the
+same as it was when the country was founded, it isn't the same as it was when
+Reagan was president, in lots of ways it is wildly different from when Clinton
+was president and yet it is treated as this vaunted, immutable construct that
+is out of our control.  People point and wring their hands, bemoaning the
+damage we are doing to it in terms of lost productivity and slipping 
+consumer confidence and I can't help but hear "I don't care how many people
+die as long as I get paid."
+
+In fact I think that's the root of this general haze of frustration I have
+been feeling lately.  All of the stories I of people going to beaches, or large
+unnecessary gatherings, or the social media 'influencers' throwing huge house
+parties translate in my head to "I don't care who dies" and it disgusts me.
+No one is holding people accountable for their selfish actions while we stack
+corpses in refrigerated trucks before piling them in un-marked graves.  People
+complain they can't travel, complain about missing sports, complain about
+'missing graduation', or wondering when schools will re-open in the midst of
+literal thousands of people dying.  A day.  In this country alone.
+
+How are we not better than this?  How are we not smarter than this?  How is the
+narrative not 'lets rally together to defeat this disease', 'lets protect
+each other', 'lets support each other'?